Sunday, November 04, 2007

The New linking! Write articles for newsletters. Actually this isn't that new but it is becoming an increasingly important way to get sites to link to you without the use of the soon-to-be-obsolete link page.

The first thing you will need to do is write an article. Be sure to involve keywords you are optimising your pages for. A perfect example would have been the story about the gentleman from the UK who bet his life savings on one bet of roulette. Fill the story, and HTML, with your keywords. Consider what someone who saw the story on MSN news would type to search for more information and fill your story with these words. The title could read something like "Ashley Revell - British Bettor Bets all on Bouncing Roulette Ball". The advantage of a story like this is the search terms are really up for grabs when it comes to the search engines. You can grab a number one search result spot right away for the keywords "Ashley Revell" if you can get your page indexed quickly. Your number one position may not last long but you will have been number one during the busiest time for these keyword searches.-Send Your Own Newsletter

Now, ideally you should first put your article in your own newsletter and send that out to your email list. Interesting stories can be very effective to make people want to read your newsletters. The SEO comes when you archive your newsletter on your site. People have reported being amazed at the increases in traffic from Google searches of their newsletter-archive pages. Content really does produce traffic.-Get Others to Send Your Article.

You now want to offer your story to others who also have newsletters. I can tell you from experience that free, good content is always welcome. It beats writing your own stuff all the time, trust me. The very best is to find someone who archives the old newsletters and there you have your first link back to your site because you have included your URL in your signature. You also have the readership of this other person's email list who will no doubt want to see first hand what brilliant mind (or raving lunatic) wrote this article and will therefore click on your link. Finally you can do the old "To Get the Full Story…" trick with a link back to your page with your full story and your other articles.

Thursday, September 27, 2007

How Important is Alexa Ranking?

Alexa Ranking - A Web Site Monetization Strategy?

All businesses that employ online marketing, strive to improve their conversion rate. Now, there are different ways of attracting targeted traffíc. Some try to achieve a good ranking in the SERPs, while others are satisfied with heavier traffic. Either way, everybody has the goal of achieving financial success.

But, while scoring high with Google may seem to certain business people the only way to make themselves known and thus reach their goal, there are others that think that a good position in the Alexa ranking system might benefit them just as well.

What is Alexa Ranking?

This is a ranking system set by alexa.com (a subsidiary of amazon.com ) that basically audits and makes public the frequency of visits to various Web sites. The algorithm by which Alexa traffíc ranking is calculated, is simple. It is based on the amount of traffic recorded over a period of three months from users that have the Alexa toolbar installed.

This traffíc is based on such parameters as reach and page views. The reach refers to the number of Alexa users who visit a particular site in one day. Page view, as the name indicates, is the number of times a particular page (URL) is viewed by Alexa users. Alexa.com makes it clear though that, if a particular user visits the same URL multiple times on the same day, all those visits will be counted as one.

The first step of the ranking process is calculating the reach and number of page views for all the sites on the Web on a daily basis. Alexa ranking is obtained by performing the geometric mean of reach and page views, averaged over a predefined period of time (three months).

How Alexa Ranking Works

It's quite easy to get started. All you have to do is visit the alexa.com site and download (and install) the Alexa toolbar. This toolbar offers a search function, but it mainly displays the rank (at a global level) of the visited site, as well as the sites that have been visited by Web surfers that are linked in some way to the site being visited.

The Alexa toolbar not only displays information, but it also sends data to the central server. Thus, each time you visit a Web page via a Web browser (be it Internet Explorer or Firefox) that has the toolbar installed, information is sent to the server indicating your IP and the page you are visiting. Such data is gathered from all the Web users who have the Alexa toolbar.

With Alexa, the smaller the numerical ranking, the better. Most people say that if you manage to make it in the top 100,000, it is a sign that your site enjoys quite heavy traffíc.

Is Alexa Ranking Worth Anything?

Benefits

Alexa Traffic can be used as a competitive intelligence tool, but you should take into consideration the fact that the audience sample size is fairly small. Just enter your competitor's site in the "Compare Sites" section and measure the results of your web marketing efforts in comparison with your competitors'.

As opposed to Google's PageRank, the lower your ranking number, the better.

It helps Webmasters and advertisers see the real marketing potential of your Web site. The better your Alexa rank, the higher they may be willing to bid to buy advertising space on your Web site.

Personal pages or blogs are also ranked in the same way as ordinary Web sites. They will even get a distinctive mark (*)

Because Alexa ranking helps you with information about your Web site, it is a good instrument for search engine optimization.

Disadvantages

Not everybody has the Alexa toolbar installed, so there might be millíons of Web sites that, even if they have a lot of traffíc, will not be ranked (or not high enough) by Alexa. It is rather relative.

Many people say that it is inaccurate and that Alexa traffíc can be greatly influenced (or "gamed", as some prefer to call it).

Subdomains are not ranked separately, and neither are subpages within a domain. The overall traffic is calculated for the top-level domain only.

Ways to Improve Your Alexa Ranking

If you want to boost your Alexa traffíc ranking, you just have to follow some quite simple rules, such as:

Download and install the Alexa toolbar and then surf your own site.

Place the Alexa widget on your Web site. It will entice visitors to use it and, you know, each click counts.

Write useful, quality content, mostly webmaster-related. Promote it on webmaster forums and on social networking sites. The idea is to get as many computer and Internet savvy people as possible to visit your site, since the probability that they will have the Alexa toolbar installed is high.

Write blogs and articles about Alexa. You will get links to your pages that will help improve your ranking.

Tell your friends about the Alexa toolbar, have them download and install it on their computers, and then tell them to visit your site.

Use an Alexa redirect. This means placing http://redirect.alexa.com/redirect? in front of your Web site's URL. Alexa will then take into consideration clicks on redirected links even if the visitor does not have the Alexa toolbar.

Apparently, Asian people are huge fans of Alexa. Therefore, many people suggest posting in Asian social networking forums.

Whenever you post on webmaster forums, include your site's URL in your signature. It is very likely that most webmasters have the toolbar installed, and there's a great probability that they'll visit your site.

Conclusion

As we have seen, there are pros and cons to Alexa ranking. The bottom line is that most people consider it valuable only for direct advertising. Given the fact that Alexa ranking for a site is calculated on the basis of how many visitors with the Alexa toolbar installed have visited that particular site, the results can be inaccurate.

Nevertheless, it may prove useful for sites with very good traffíc that attract highly targetëd leads, since Alexa focuses more on the traffic that Web sites receive rather than on links to it. As a Web site monetization strategy, we can safely say that Alexa ranking might be the right solution.

Monday, August 13, 2007

Building Valuable Backlinks

Building decent backlinks to your site can be one of the most important strategies in gaining awareness, in relation to sites of your circle, higher rankings and crucially, long term respect from the search engines.

The links you build should be on relevant higher ranking sites and not on link farms or useless directories. Relevant directory listings can definitely be a bonus but don't focus too much on them, though stuff like DMOZ, Yahoo directory listings can be valuable.

So, how do you go about getting backlinks? Well you can either pay for them or ask politely for a free link, simple as that. Just get a list of relevant sites to yours and ones which are at least... PR3 depending on your own pagerank, but then again, a backlink is a backlink, so just get a decent list of relevant sites to begin.

Once you have a good list, go to each of these sites, find the contact page or find another way to find out who owns the site and email the webmaster asking for a link. Just say that you like their site and ask politely if they wouldn't mind linking to you as you're another good resource for that topic.

Now some people don't just give away links willy nilly so you might end up in 1 of 4 scenarios, either

A: You get a response saying that they will link to you... (perfect!).

B: You get a response asking for a reciprocal link.

C: You get a response asking for payment for a placement.

D: You get a straight... no.

So if you get a straight up yes, that's perfect; you've just gotten yourself a free backlink.

If you get a reply asking for a return link... alot of people would say reciprocal links are pointless and cancel each other out... well, I'm not sure they entirely do but even if they do, depending on the traffic to the apposing site - it still may create a tiny bit more awareness / traffic to your site, so I would say it's worth it. It surely can't do any harm, so why not.

If you get a reply stating that he / she / they do not give out free backlinks and it will cost to have a link placed, ask how much, if they haven't said so already.

Then evaluate if it's worth it, go find out what sort of prices links are going for on certain PR's and if it's even worth buying one on this site. Find out the sites traffic, age, rankings etc.

If you get a straight no then try replying back asking why, if they give no reason -maybe they just didn't want to give out a free link, in which case either offer a return link or a payment (if it's worth it).

Also, when asking for backlinks it's important to get good anchor text. It's been proven that anchor text links are pretty valuable long term these days on the web so you should get in there now. You should vary the text in which you ask your link to be named each time, but not so much and so broad that it could be mistaken as spam. Too much of exactly the same text could also be wrongly taken as inerlinking or cheating by the search engines so make sure you get good healthy text links, but not overloaded.

Say for example you own a website about sleeping problems, get a few links with the text Can't Sleep? or something like that, maybe some with the text Sleeping Problems and then one or two with your actual site title.

A good cycle of healthy anchor text links should help remind Google etc that the backlinks are genuine.

Monday, July 16, 2007

3 Top Ways for Perfect Internet Marketing Campaign

Everyone knows the Internet is growing exponentially and continually evolving. The major players in the continual evolution of the Internet are the major search engines and consumer generated media such as blogs. Because of the continual changes, a well rounded Internet marketing strategy must include a variety of proven marketing options to ensure success. I will outline 3 of the most effective Internet marketing solutíons available and how they relate to your marketing strategy.

SEO Optimization

Search engine optimization (SEO) is the first because the frëe advertising afforded by the search engines is partly determined by on-page optimization techniques. With thousands of new Websites being created daily, the competition for a listíng on the first search result page is increasingly saturated for the popular keywords. Statistics show better than 90% of people only look at the first search result page, and a similar percentage only clíck on the top search listing.

In order to compete effectively, a Web page must be designed around a keyword or more effectively, a keyword phrase. The keywords must be included in the page's title, keyword META tag, page's description, the first heading (using the H1 HTML tag), throughout the body of the page and within the last 25 words on the page. These are just a few of the basic SEO on-page options that, although will not guarantëe a first page listing, are definitely required as a starting point in an effective Internet marketing strategy.

In most cases, there is too much competition for certain keywords such as "golf clubs". A better strategy would be to use "golf clubs Chicago" or handcrafted golf clubs". The more specific you make your keyword phrase the better. A number of frëe tools are available that will show the popularity of keywords and how often they are used in the search engines on a monthly basis. These will allow you to customize your Web page knowing the keyword phrase's popularity. If you get the first page listing for a keyword with less than 100 searches per month for instance, then it doesn't matter because your traffíc will be very limited.

Link Exchanges

Once the on-page optimizations are complete, the off-page optimization options need to be addressed. Link exchanges are perhaps the best off-page SEO technique available. If you download and install the Google toolbar on your browser, you will see the Google PageRank of each site you visit. Your PageRank is determined by the number of other sites linking to your site, and the QUALITY of the link is a major consideration. Pages are ranked from 1 to 10. The higher the PageRank of the site linking to yours, the better. Sites with a PR7 and above are considered as authority sites and a back link will send Google's spider to your page on a regular basis.

There are a number of ways to get a back link to your site. You can email a request to the Webmaster for a link exchange and if they agree you would return the favor by placing a link to their site on your page. You can also purchase the link. A number of sites offër this service for a monthly fee. So if you want to quickly get your site listed by Google and the major search engines, then paying for a PR8 back link for a month or two might be well worth the ínvestment in the long run, as new sites are placed in a "sand box" by Google for several months until they prove their longevity.

One back link from a PR8 site is worth 1,000 back links from PR2 or less sites. As a matter of fact, numerous links from low ranking sites will actually be detrimental to your site, because each back link is like a vote for your site. If you have too many low ranking sites voting for yours, Google will be reluctant to reward your site with a higher PR. You have to do your research on the site that offers to link to yours because if they were blacklisted by Google, your site will receive the same fate and you probably will nevër recover from this.

A PR 4 or 5 is relatively easy to attain. So your best bet is to limit your back links to PR5 and above for the best results. And by all means avoid link farms. Before Google upgraded its algorithm, just the number of back links was considered. But now the actual PageRank of your back link is considered AND the PageRank of the sites listing to THAT link. Links from link farms are now looked upon as basically sp@m links. You would be better off purchasing a listíng in a major link directory like Yahoo or DMZ. It's definitely worth the ínvestment as these are authority sites and are a major vote for your site!

Blogs

As previously indicated, consumer generated media is a major factor in the evolution of the Internet. Case in point is the enormous effect blogs had on the last Presidential campaign. A very large percentage of most searches will include blogs on the first page listing. Over 50% of purchases, online and offline, are preceded by an online search for more information. And a large percentage of the information is offered by blogs. People are very interested in the opinions of others on their topic of interest.

The major blogs are updated on a daily basis which is very important to Google's algorithm which uses the frequency of updates (daily, hourly and by minute) as a determining factor in the search result ranking. A powerful marketing method used by the major blogs is to submit articles on a particular topic to the major article hubs such as EzineArticles.com. The article hub benefits by having continually updated information (which Google likes) where they can place their monëy makíng AdSense ads. The blogger benefits by having a back link to their blog at the bottom of the article.

As numerous other bloggers and Webmasters access the article hubs for fresh information, the article can be syndicated virally to a number sites on the Internet. This creates a number of back links to your blog or your site generating an enormous amount of pre-qualified frëe traffíc.

In Summary

These are just a few of the most effective online Internet marketing options available. Other options such as auto-responder email, Ezine advertising and pay per clíck advertising should be included in a well rounded Internet marketing strategy. No matter what options you use, you definitely need to start with your on-page SEO techniques. Your listing in the search results will be enhanced by a properly optimized page. Also professional search engine submission service like Addsiteonline.com

Sunday, July 01, 2007

Does the PPC budget determine the agency fees?

This is a question that I often get from direct clients, smaller agencies or larger agencies who are just starting to offer search marketing services. In all three cases, my client (e.g., the agency or the advertiser) is looking to me to help them price out search services.

For agencies, I actually favor a hybrid model of media percentage and flat fees for larger and more complex PPC campaigns. I personally base my fee structure on hours worked, something I provide prospective clients in the form of a 2-3 page estimate after we’ve hammered out the overall scope of work.

Estimating a PPC Job - A Consultant’s Viewpoint

To answer the main question here - I rarely base my estimate on the size of the budget because there’s not much difference between putting together a campaign with a $1000/month budget and a $10,000/month budget (for example). In my opinion, budget should only influence fees when it’s very large – over six figures a month, and that’s mainly because it’s generally indicative of a more complex campaign.

Here are the factors that I think should affect the estimate:

The number of vendors (engines) in the plan – it’s a lot more work to launch campaigns on three engines, monitor, report and optimize them than it is to focus on just one (*cough* Google *cough*) engine

The number of keywords/categories in the campaign– An e-commerce site with 12 categories and thousands of products has many keyword variables to test, while a company that just sells one product or service (e.g., online tax filing) has a limited number of keywords. Keyword expansion and refinement directly impacts the number of hours spent optimizing a campaign, and should be a factor when estimating hours.

The potential for campaign growth. Many campaigns I launch start small and then grow into great monstrous beasts that require a lot more time to manage then when they initially launched. As such, I find it’s important to do three-month trials so the scope of work can be re-evaluated to see if 1) an agency is even needed at all and 2) if the campaign has grown/changed significantly where the number of hours needs to be revisted

The amount of reporting involved. I provide weekly summary reports to most small clients as well as monthly keyword reports. If a client requires more reporting than this (e.g., CPA reports by keyword by week) than I would likely increase the amount of the estimate. Very large campaigns (of the type I manage with the large agencies) often are very complex and have teams of PPC specialists working on them, which justifies the higher cost of retaining these companies to manage a campaign. Well, that and the higher ROI the campaign achieves.

Many of the projects I work on with small agencies or directly with the client amount to about 25-40 hours to launch, and 20-30 hours/month to manage. This doesn’t seem to deviate much for budgets of $50,000 or less, and I’ve begun moving to a flat monthly retainer fee for these types of campaigns.

I’m certainly not sayng that the way I do things is the best way, but so far my clients feel it’s fair and I’m happy with the compensation. I have begun exploring the idea of getting paid for performance with e-commerce or lead-generation campaigns, but I haven’t yet taken that plunge. Still, it’s got some exciting potential.

Friday, June 01, 2007

The Main SEO Secrets

The most important seo factor is KEYWORDS. Every website has specific keywords. What are your keywords? Keywords are the words that they use to lead visitors to your site. Keywords would generally include your company name, brand name, and any other words specific to your company or product. Keywords should also reflect the mind-set of your custome